> I was recently lucky enough to receive a few Sylvania 6E5 magic eye > tubes as part of an assortment of nixies and decatrons. > > I know these were typically used in radio tuner applications from what > I understand, and I've looked over the datasheet and a few other > resources, but my experience with vacuum tubes and CRTs is very > limited.
Eye tubes are a good start, as there aren't many things to hook up or worry about. You'll need two power supplies and one resistor as a minimum. The resistor can be 470k to 2meg or so, 1/2 watt or more. You'll need a heater supply of 6.3 volts (AC or DC). This goes to the big pins (1 and 6). You'll also need a target supply of 125 to 250 volts DC. Connect the negative lead to pin 5 (cathode), and the positive lead to the resistor. The other side of the resistor connects to pin 4 (the eye tube target). This should light up the tube. To close the eye, connect pin 2 (ray control electrode) to pin 5 (cathode). To open the eye, connect pin 2 to pin 4. If you have a tube checker, you can use it to light your eye tube as well - the lashup I described above is equivalent to the tube tester setup. - John -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
